Making and Freezing Homemade Chicken Stock
Making your own homemade chicken stock is easy and delicious! Here are some tips for making and freezing your own stock.
Over the years I have made many batches of homemade chicken stock. I just can’t throw out perfectly good chicken leftovers when I can turn them into a delicious and healthy stock that I can use in soups, for cooking rice and in many other dinner recipes. But what I love most about homemade stock is that it’s just that…homemade. I know what’s in it, there are no added fillers or ingredients, just a clean and healthy stock. Not only is making stock very easy, but it also saves you money at the grocery store.
Making stock is as simple as adding a few simple ingredients, which I’m sure you already have in your home, to a large stock pot, then letting it all simmer for a few hours on your stove. The end result is a clean and healthy stock ready to use!
How to Freeze Homemade Chicken Stock
After the broth has been cooled and strained, and if I don’t have an immediate use for it, I will freeze it. I have tried several different ways to freeze stock but I have found freezing it in portions in ziplock bags the best! I will freeze them into 4 cup portions which are most commonly required for soup recipes, then I will freeze smaller amounts for things like chilis and grains.
Lay the Bags on a Cookie Sheet before Freezing
After I portion out the amounts, I lay the bags onto a cookie sheet so they freeze flat (that way you can stack them in your freezer and they don’t take up a lot of space). To label them I used this dry erase tape – it’s a really great way to label things.
So here’s the recipe…simple ingredients, and easily tailored to your tastebuds. Enjoy!
Homemade Chicken Stock Recipe Tips:
- Use what you have. Stocks are very versatile. You can use both the vegetables and the vegetable scraps from carrots, celery, onions, garlic, scallions, and herbs such as parsley, sage, thyme, and rosemary.
- Do you need to bundle the herbs? Some stock recipes call for ‘bouqet garnis’, which are basically little bundles of herbs in cheesecloth, that are easily removed once the stock is done. I don’t bother bundling my herbs, I just toss them in as is and they get strained out fine.
- The chicken carcass. I like to remove as much chicken meat from the carcass before I make my stock. I set aside this chicken to add later to soup.
- To Strain or Not to Strain? Most times I will strain the broth. But sometimes there are some really great chunks of chicken and vegetables that I can’t bear to discard, so I will add them to my soup.
- Let the stock cool before freezing. Don’t freeze the stock when it’s hot. Let it cool then portion it into bags.
- Chicken stock freezes beautifully. As mentioned above I like to freeze my broth in 4 cup portions. And I freeze the broth in ziplock bags that I lay flat so they freeze flat, making storage in the freezer really easy and tidy.
- Use this stock to make soups and add to different recipes. I’m sharing a few ideas below the recipe card.
Making and Freezing Homemade Chicken Stock
Making your own chicken stock is easy and delicious! Here are some tips for making and freezing your own stock.
- Prep Time: 15 minutes
- Cook Time: 210 minutes
- Total Time: 3 hours 45 minutes
- Yield: 10 - 12 cups 1x
Ingredients
- 1 pieces chicken carcass (broken into)
- 2 medium onions coarsely chopped
- 2 carrots (peeled and coarsely chopped)
- 2 celery stalks (coarsely chopped)
- 1 tsp thyme
- 1 tsp sage
- 2 leaves bay
- 1 tbsp black peppercorns
- leaves Optional spices: sometimes I add fresh sprigs of rosemary (fresh parsley, celery)
Instructions
- In a stock pot, cover the chicken pieces completely with water.
- Bring to a boil, reduce heat, then simmer gently for about 30 minutes.
- After the 30 minutes, add the chopped vegetables and spices.
- Simmer uncovered for about 3 hours, adding water as needed.
- After 3 hours, strain the broth. I throw out all the chunks. (I used to try to save everything for my soup, but there are too many small bones.)
- Now you have stock for many delicious dishes!
Notes
Please note, that stocks typically are unsalted. So when you are making your soup, you will have to be sure to salt it!
Keywords: chicken broth
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Now you need some ideas for all the delicious stock you will have available!
I make this Chicken & Rice Soup a lot in our home! It’s a perfect recipe for this homemade stock.
This Coconut Curry Noodle Soup is a family favourite! It’s the best. I need it now.
Turkey Meatball Noodle Soup is great too! So comforting and delicious!
Have a delicious day!
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I’m all about homemade stock! During the winter I freeze scraps, and during summer I compost. Where I live it is extra cold most of the year, so I end up having enough usable scraps for a freezer full of stock to last all year. Very short composting season! 🙂
That’s such a great idea! It’s amazing how much scrap material we can use to make stock!
Please add me to your mthly recipes or however you do it
Often I buy a large rotisserie chicken at Costco for Friday night suppers for my family of five adults. Whatever meat isn’t eaten that night is taken off the bones and stored in a mason jar in the refrigerator. That leftover chicken is usually eaten in sandwiches over the weekend. On Friday night, the chicken bones, and enough water to cover the bones – about a quart, are cooked in the crockpot overnight. I use the water from the refrigerator instead of the sink because the refrigerator water goes through a filter in the refrigerator and that refrigerator water does NOT go through my water heater. The crockpot bone broth is cooled on the kitchen counter a few hours, and then stored in the refrigerator in a mason jar. Once the bone broth is cold, it is frozen in one cup portions (for making rice) or four cup portions (for soups). Whatever chicken meat that has not been eaten by Monday afternoon is frozen for casseroles or pasta sauce. There is one other thing that I do. Sometimes I put really small pieces of chicken in the one cup portions of broth at the same time that I measure it. Those little chicken pieces will add flavor and texture to my rice.
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